Salmon habitat restoration planned near Redding along Sacramento River

Contributed photo
A recent picture of Painter's Riffle, downstream of the bridge near Turtle Bay in Redding, shows a gravel bar blocking a side channel that provided spawning ground and habitat for salmon for 25 years. A storm in 2011 redistributed gravel along the Sacramento River, blocking the use of the area by fish.

REDDING &GT;&GT; Plans have been mapped out to restore a side channel to the Sacramento River near Redding that was once a hospitable spawning area for salmon.

Known as Painter's Riffle, the area just south of the Highway 44/299 bridge becomes a gravel bar when the river is low.

In 1986, California Department of Fish and Game biologist Dick Painter designed and built the side channel, expecting that salmon would travel off the main river to spawn.

They did.

Estimates by Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, which is paying for a bulk of the current project, are that 100-200 additional redds were built each year. A "redd" is the depression in the gravel made by female salmon before eggs are deposited.

If each fish lays more than 5,000 eggs, the impact on the fish population becomes significant. Painter's Riffle had also been a good area for juvenile salmon to feed before they entered the river.

In 2008 the Highway 44 bridge, near Turtle Bay East Regional Park, was rebuilt. Gravel was accumulated in a pile. The gravel remained so that it could gradually re-enter the river over time.

However, three years later, in 2011, a major storm event took place and high water swept away 11,000 cubic yards of gravel. Enough of the gravel landed at the entrance of the Painter's Riffle side channel that it blocks the flow of water when the river drops below 10,000 cubic feet per second.

The proposal to re-engineer, dig out and restore the area is a partnership between Glenn-Colusa, the Golden Gate Salmon Association, Northern California Water Association, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The public comment period on the project study and mitigated negative declaration are due Sept. 11. For the full press release, see www.gcid.net.

Read the entire initial study here: http://goo.gl/RmLvqg.

The plan is for Glenn-Colusa to begin the project this November.

The project is one of eight identified by Glenn-Colusa in partnership with the salmon group. The goal is to improve fisheries as a whole.

The winter-run chinook salmon is listed as endangered under the state and federal Endangered Species Act.

For six to eight months out of the year the operations of Lake Shasta are done with the winter-run salmon in mind, said Thad Bettner, manager of Glenn-Colusa.

"Anything we can do to implement projects to improve the winter and spring run (chinook) helps with the flexibility of the Central Valley Project," Bettner said.

Restoring Painter's Riffle is expected to help all four salmon runs along the Sacramento River.

The cost of the project is estimated at about $250,000, with permitting and engineering.

Painter's Riffle is the first to move along, with seven more projects identified by biologist Dave Vogel. The hope is to start on others in the next year or two, Bettner said.

The permitting process, and costs, takes a long time, longer than he would have expected, Bettner said.

Plus, the river can and does change, as seen with the 2011 storm event that changed Painter's Riffle.

When the project is completed, the plans do not provide for routine maintenance to keep the riffle open to fish. If a similar event blocks the river, the entire permitting process would need to begin again.

"We've been looking at whether there are ways to sit down with state and federal (fisheries agencies) to expedite" the process if the spawning ground disappears, Bettner said.

"Is there an easy way to clean up the site without a whole new permit process?" Bettner said.